Chadha, Harbhajan Among AAP RS Candidates
New Delhi, March 21: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday announced the nomination of party leader Raghav Chadha, cricketer Harbhajan Singh and former IIT Associate Professor Sandeep Pathak among five for the Rajya Sabha for Punjab.
The other two picked for membership of the Upper House of Parliament are Ashok Kumar Mittal, founder and Chancellor of Lovely Professional University, and industrialist Sanjeev Arora.
Chadha, 33, an MLA from Delhi’s Rajinder Nagar, has been associated with AAP founder and Delhi Chief Minsiter Arvind Kejriwal since the age of 22. A Chartered Accountant by profession, Chadha was co-in-charge of the AAP for the February assembly elections in Punjab which the party won by sweeping 92 of the 117 seats.
When elected, the AAP spokesperson is likely to be the youngest member of the Rajya Sabha. Pathak has been publicly praised by Kejriwal for overseeing the AAP election campaign and strategy in Punjab which decimated virtually all its rivals.
Harbhajan Singh, a reputed spinner, played for India and in the Indian Premier League from 1998 to 2021. Five Rajya Sabha members from Punjab — Partap Singh Bajwa and S S Dullo (Congress), Shwait Malik (BJP), Naresh Gujral (SAD) and S S Dhindsa (SAD-Sanyukt) — are retiring on April 9.